Commentary Many readers are no doubt familiar with nudge theory, a concept built around achieving compliance without using coercion. Ostensibly, nudges are designed to help people make better decisions. However, when governments resort to nudging, we must ask, who benefits? Is this nudge actually a push? And in what direction, exactly, are we being pushed?…

Commentary More and more people in the United States will be wising up to their government’s use of behavioural science—or ‘nudging’—as a means of increasing compliance with Covid-19 restrictions. These psychological techniques exploit the fact that human beings are almost always on ‘automatic pilot,’ habitually making moment-by-moment decisions without rational thought or conscious reflection. The…